Under John Calipari’s leadership, the Kentucky men’s basketball program was synonymous with recruiting five-star prospects.
If a prospect was considered to be at or near the top of their respective recruiting class, there was a good chance their recruitment — to some extent — involved the Wildcats.
Even during the course of what became his final season as UK’s head coach, Calipari frequently hinted that recruiting was going well with class of 2025 prospects, who will soon start their final high school seasons.
And with Cal at the helm, two players from this talented 2025 class had extreme interest in potentially becoming Wildcats.
Cameron and Cayden Boozer are the twin sons of former Duke college basketball star and NBA All-Star Carlos Boozer, and they’re well on their way to forging their own basketball legacies.
Cameron, a 6-foot-9 power forward, is ranked as the No. 2 overall player in the 2025 recruiting class, per the 247Sports Composite. Cayden, a 6-3 guard, is ranked No. 17.
Calipari offered them both Kentucky scholarships last May, and the duo took an official visit to Lexington together last September. This marked the first official visits in each of their recruitments.
Plenty has changed since then, with the headline news being Calipari leaving UK for Arkansas and ex-BYU coach Mark Pope now leading the Wildcats.
With Pope in charge, the expectation is that top-ranked high school recruiting classes will become a thing of the past for Kentucky. At the same time, Pope — who has only been the UK head coach for a little more than a month — hasn’t shied away from UK’s big-time expectations.
That includes on the recruiting trail. And as far as the Boozer twins go, last weekend provided clear evidence that Pope is interested in continuing to recruit them to UK.
While watching the third session of the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) near Indianapolis — which occurred during a live recruiting period for college coaches — Pope made it a point to be courtside for the Boozers’ games with Nightrydas Elite, their star-studded EYBL team that is currently top of the standings.
In fact, the very first game Pope watched during his first live recruiting period as UK’s coach was a Nightyrdas game in which Cameron scored 20 points and grabbed eight rounds and Cayden scored 13 points, grabbed five rebounds and dished out eight assists.
“We haven’t really spoke yet, but (Pope) talked to my mom earlier,” Cameron said Saturday afternoon. “We’ll see what happens there.”
At one point last weekend, three Kentucky coaches — Pope along with associate head coach Alvin Brooks III and assistant coach Jason Hart — were all together with courtside seats to watch the Boozer twins in action.
“You notice all of them. How can you not?” Cameron said of the dozens of high-major coaches who were in attendance for last weekend’s Nike EYBL session.
Kentucky’s competition for the Boozer twins is steep: The duo star at Christopher Columbus High School in Miami, and plenty of local schools like Miami (Fla.) and Florida are making both players a priority.
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